Damion led a group of students in a Nitrous Oxide/Propane rocket engine project. The engine ran and they have posted some pictures and video.

KN/Sucrose Igniters

“I visited Jimmy Yawn with the idea of using glow plugs to ignite a solid propellant for use in igniters.

I tested a standard glow plug from an RC engine and one from an automobile. The automotive plug was a from a 2000 Ford F350.

The RC glow plug ignited almost instantly once it was powered but it had problems with reliability. The coil for the plug is protected by the plug. In order to get it to work you would apply some propellant to the tip of the plug. Too much would fail and sometimes too little would fail. The coil would also get covered in residue or ash and would need to be cleaned. I messed up two of the plugs by pressing the propellant against the glow plug too hard and it would compress the little coil inside the plug“

The team have also released some videos of previous tests, view all of the videos at the News Section of the Exoge Aerospace Website.

Here is a brief history of the team taken from my last interview with the organisation.

UCF Senior Design Project - Exoge Aerospace

I got in contact with Thomas McNeill and the team so that I could find out some more information about their background and future plans. When asked about the start-up of the organisation, I was told “It started when I joined SEDS, Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, a few years ago. I had always been interested in aerospace and opening access to space. The SEDS group was working on a high altitude rocket competition so I decided to get involved. I met Damion in SEDS and volunteered some time to the Aero Lab. We became friends and worked on several projects. During the SEDS Space Vision 2006 conference in Chicago the speakers inspired me to get to work on something. So Damion and I got together and went over many ideas and came up with this one.”